The author also uses a female that is known as Curley’s wife to express the theme of loneliness. At the time of the Great Depression, Curley’s wife couldn’t really make friends because the society was patriarchal and she was the only female of the ranch. As well as this, people avoid talking to her because they are afraid of her husband, Curley. He is jealous and would start a fight with anyone who tried approaching her. “I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch myself. I’ll shoot ‘im in the guts”. She yearns for the attention of the ranchers to sooth her loneliness. These acts give her a sense of relief and make her feel wanted. However, she is called many names by the ranchers because of the way she is heavily made up. Before she is introduced to the reader, she is criticised. “Well I think that Curley’s married…….a tart”. These words were spoken by Old Candy to George. Again in the book, George insults her saying “Jesus, what a tramp. So that’s what Curley picks for a wife”. Steinbeck does this to give s an idea that she isn’t a good person.
She portrays herself as a sex symbol but deep inside she was lonely and unloved. She had felt no love from her husband, so these made her have feeling to dress up and seek attention from other people. On the other hand, this gave her a bad name and made her situation worse. Her behaviour of the craving of attention is because of the time that she was living. Married women, of what she was, faced discrimination and public hatred because society viewed them as taking jobs away from men, even though their jobs stayed within the category of jobs for women.
John Steinbeck also uses the context of the Great Depression to explore the themes of unattainable dreams through the characters.
Curley’s wife had a dream. Her dream was to become famous with the help of a man that she had met before she got married. The man had promised he would send her a letter as to when he would meet her and help her to become famous. “I coulda made somethin’ of myself…he was gonna put me in the movies…was gonna write to me about it”. The letter never came so she blamed her mother for this. “I never got that letter; I always thought my ol’ lady stole it.” Curley’s wife’s dream was unattainable because of many reasons. She got married which turned her into a housewife. Also, in the conclusion she ended up dying. Because of the context of the Great Depression, this affected her because jobs, like the one she wanted to do, were only for men and rich people.
George and Lennie also had a dream. They had a dream saving enough money to buy their own farm with lots of animals and rabbits because Lennie likes rabbits very much. "We have a dream. Some day, we'll have a little house and a couple of acres. A place to call home." However, their dream was unattainable. They didn’t have enough money to afford the place that they wanted to buy. “We got ten bucks between us”. In addition, the dream cannot exist without friendship.
Without the other, neither character would be able to maintain the dream. Lennie persistently asks George to "Tell about how it's gonna be". The constant repetition of the way things will be is what keeps the dream alive in Lennie. When George kills Lennie, he also kills the friendship, which results in the death of the dream within him. The context of the Great Depression affects both George and Lennie because, to get enough money to afford the farm, they must work, but during the Great Depression you had to travel from ranch to ranch to get a job because the jobs don’t last for long.